When he tells the story in the public-house, as tell it he will, after recounting all he saw of the chase and a bit more besides, he will say: "I knowed he wanna out of Bullshire. None of our gents are like that; sum City chap maybe, 'ain't larned manners;" and while spending the rest of the eighteen-pence he has earned out hunting he is as happy as a king, with whom he would not change places for the world, much preferring, so long as he can get occasionally a day off and plenty to eat and drink, to remain as simple—Hodge.
THE KEEPER.
One of the richest men in the county of Bullshire next to "the Dook" is a Mr. Betteridge, a retired partner of the well-known firm of Betteridge, Woolsey, and Co., of Manchester, who about five years back purchased the Medemere estate, which originally belonged to the Slowboy family. Of course he immediately improved (?) the fine old Elizabethan hall by adding thereto sundry wings and towers, and also converting the old-fashioned gardens, with their quaint yew-edges, into trim parterres and terraces, after what he was pleased to call "the Italian style."
He has two great objects in life, in both of which unfortunately he appears bound to be frustrated. The first is to be what is known as "a popular sportsman," and the second to be considered somebody of importance.
With regard to number one—beyond having made a gorse and keeping the most expensive cattle, which, needless to say, he cannot ride himself—his ideas are limited; while, in the second instance, he has a deadly rival, before whom he sinks into insignificance, and whose word he has learnt to look on as law.